Surprise!
by Naoko Matatabi
Summary: Naruto has some surprises for Kurama after asking him an odd question. Filled with funny moments, friendship, and a nickname Kurama will regret.


**Yo! Welcome to the story. Feel free to kick back relax and read. Something you should know. This takes place around six monthes after the Fourth Ninja War. All the tailed beasts have willingly been sealed into new hosts because they saw how great of a relationship Naruto and Bee have with their tailed beasts. Sasuke has also come back. I'll leave how that happened to your imagination. **

**Disclaimer: I in no way shape or form own Naruto or any recognizable characters.**

_**Italics**_**: Thinking **

**Underlined:**** Telepathy shared by tailed beasts**

* * *

He was up to something. Kurama just knew it. There was no way that Uzumaki Naruto was being quiet, calm and thoughtful. Yet the energetic blonde was being all three of those things. He was just sitting there, on his bed, staring into space, not doing a thing. This fact worried Kurama. His blonde host never acted like this, EVER. Even during the war he was a giant ball of energy.

'_What's wrong with him? Is he sick or something?'_ Kurama thought to himself.

'_No. He's not in pain or complaining. Maybe he lost a bet with Sasuke.' _Kurama thought for a second. '_No. Then he'd be pouting or ranting about how he needed to beat the Teme. Maybe he's deep in thought.'_ Kurama paused. This was Naruto he was talking about.

Finally Kurama couldn't take it anymore. He pulled Naruto into his unconscious. The area had done a great deal of changing since Kurama had been released. Now, instead of a dank sewer with bars of a cage, a sky reigned above and a grass hill composed the main feature of a large unused field. Kurama found it most comfortable to sleep on the grass hill and resided there currently. Naruto sat in the same cross legged position that he occupied in the physical world. He didn't seem to have noticed that he had changed location. Kurama rolled his eyes.

"Naruto." Kurama said, trying to break the ninja from his thoughts.

"Naruto." He called again when he didn't receive a response.

"Naruto!" The only reaction his yell had achieved was a blink.

Kurama growled. He considered throwing a Tailed Beast Ball at the kid, but figured it'd just be a waste of chakra. Lazily, Kurama moved one of his tails and lifted the boy upside down from his ankle. Amazingly Naruto stayed in his same cross-legged position, still deep in non-existent thought.

Kurama sighed. "Fine. You asked for it."

With a flick of his tail, Kurama sent Naruto flying off past the horizon of his mindscape, a plumb of dust the only sign he had landed. Kurama waited. He didn't hear anything. Maybe he should have tried something else to wake the boy up.

"What the hell?!"

Kurama smirked. _'Nope, he's ok.'_

Naruto appeared from the crater he had created upon impact and stomped up to Kurama.

"What the heck was that for ya' stupid fox?" Naruto demanded.

"Tch. You were the one who spaced out." Kurama shot back.

"So you threw me across my own mind?" Naruto asked, exasperated.

"No. I threw you across your own mind after calling you thrice."

"I don't care about your stupid rice! It doesn't give you an excuse to use me to damage my own mind!" Naruto yelled.

"I don't think it's possible to damage it more than it already was. Before I got free this place was a gutter; a literal gutter. It's no wonder you fit in with all those perverts." Kurama huffed.

"I do not fit in with them! Just cause I was trained by Ero-sensei and Kakashi-sensei does not mean I'm one of them!"

"Then explain the Sexy-no-jutsu you created before they even trained you."

Naruto paused. The fox had a point.

The two lapsed into silence as Naruto seemed to return to his thoughts. Kurama was just about to threaten to through Naruto again when the blonde asked a question.

"Hey, Fuzzbutt, when were you born?"

Kurama growled. It was a sad day indeed when the great Nine-Tailed Fox was referred to as Fuzzbutt by a sixteen year old brat. Kurama sincerely hope Shukaku never found out. He'd never hear the end of it.

"Don't call me that. And what does it matter to you?"

"I just wanna know when you were born. I mean, I know you're the 'Great and Powerful Nine-Tails' but There had to have been a time when you didn't exist." Naruto reasoned.

"There was." Kurama conceded. "A long time ago."

Naruto waited for Kurama to expand on his words, but the fox didn't say anything more.

"And…." Naruto prompted.

"And what?" Kurama asked

"What do you mean 'and what'? Aren't you gonna tell me when you were born?"

"Even if I could tell you, I wouldn't." Kurama replied.

"Why can't you tell me?" Naruto whined.

"Runt, the old man died when we tailed beasts were pretty young. He didn't have time to teach us a lot of stuff, including how a calendar worked."

"Oh." Naruto said, looking contemplative.

Kurama lazily watched Naruto as a thought occurred to him.

"Hey Runt, ain't you late for training or something?"

Naruto stiffened.

"If I run now Sakura-chan might not hit me."

Both of them heard the bang of a door breaking coming from the physical world.

"Crap."

"I'd run if I were you." Kurama said, enjoying the look of fear on Naruto's face.

In an instant Naruto disappeared and Kurama watched from his hill as Naruto ran for his life from the pink haired menace that was his team mate. He chuckled, he had to admit being stuck in Naruto did provide some of the best fun he'd ever had. Kurama closed off his sight to the physical world and curled his tails around his body, a power nap sounded pretty good right about then.

_**A few days later**_

"Where are we going?" Kurama asked. Naruto had woken him up from a nap and told him that he should watch the outside world. Then he started walking in a totally random direction.

"It's a surprise." Naruto answered cryptically.

"If it's a surprise then why did you wake me up from my nap?"

Naruto paused in his walking. "Didn't think of that."

"Idiot."

Naruto ignored the fox in his head and continued walking to the edge of the village. He nodded at the guards as he continued through the gates, they nodded back and continued with their shift.

"Are we there yet?"

"No."

"Are we there now?"

"No."

"How about now?"

"Yes."

"Seriously?"

"No, Fuzzbutt. Now quit asking me."

"Don't call me that."

Naruto continued on in into the woods in silence. Finally he reached a small clearing in the thick forrest.

"We're here!" Naruto sang happily.

"A clearing in the forest was your big surprise?" Kurama asked, unimpressed. "You really are an idiot."

"Shut up, or I won't tell you about the actual surprise."

"Tch."

Naruto walked to the middle of the clearing and carefully made a shadow clone. The two Naruto's turned to each other and smiled. Kurama watched on in mild curiosity.

"What are you up to Runt?"

"I thought of an idea on how you could get out of my head." Naruto answered.

Kurama's ears perked up. "Really?"

"Yep. Do you remember during the war when you wanted to talk to Obito?"

"I'm an old fox Naruto, not a senile one."

"Anyway, I figured if you could take over me then you should be able to take over one of my shadow clones."

Kurama's eyes widened. Why hadn't he thought of that?!

"You're serious? You're going to let me take over one of your shadow clones?"

"Well, I'm not sure how long it'll last because of chakra, but yeah. Why wouldn't I?"

Kurama had to admit, he was a little touched. Sure he and Naruto had gotten along much better after the war, and during the war Naruto had trusted him immensely, but there was always that small part of Kurama that said he did it all for power, that the second Naruto didn't need him he'd be back in a cage. This proved him wrong.

With caution, just in case it was trick, Kurama took over the conscious of the Naruto clone. He opened his eyes, the clone's eyes, and looked around. He was free. He was outside, and he was free. He lifted the clone's leg experimentally and took a step forward.

"Whatcha' waiting for? Be free Fuzzbutt, be free." Naruto cheered.

Kurama didn't even bother to correct him as he jumped into a tree. He jumped from branch to branch, working muscles he hadn't felt for a long time. Then he jumped down from the tree and began to race around, eventually kicking off the clone's shoes and running around on all fours. The grass felt soft beneath his hands and feet. He would never grow tired of this.

"Yahoooo!" Kurama yelled happily. His voice sounded like Naruto's except a bit deeper and gruffer.

Finally Kurama returned to the clearing where Naruto was.

"You ready Fuzzbutt?" Naruto asked.

"Don't call me that. And ready for what?"

"It's a surprise. But first let's change your look." Naruto said, grinning.

"My look?" Kurama said, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I doubt you want to walk around looking like me."

"It could have some interesting prank potential."

Naruto paused. "You don't mean pranking me, right?" he asked nervously.

Kurama just smirked.

"Anyway….make a henge so we can head out. I don't want the time limit to expire yet."

Kurama did as Naruto asked and created a henge. He gave himself messy rust red hair that reached the middle of his back. His eyes were a red close to that of the Sharingan and had the slit pupils of a fox. His face a slightly angular and had a mischievous look to it. His clothes consisted of a black t-shirt and the standard navy blue ninja pants with a holster for ninja tools wrapped around the thigh. Wrapped around his forehead was a Konoha forehead protector.

"Ready." Kurama said.

"Great, let's go."

The two jumped through the trees to the hidden village and over the wall onto the rooftops of buildings. The guards atop the wall allowed them to pass once they saw the tell-tale orange of Naruto's jacket.

"Hey, Runt, where are we going?"

"You've been asking that a lot lately."

"Whatever, just tell me where."

"Just follow me." Naruto said, pulling out in front of Kurama.

After jumping over a few more roofs they arrived at Naruto's apartment. Before Kurama could comment or complain, Naruto pushed him inside the dark apartment.

"Surprise!" yelled everyone hidden in the room as the room was lit.

"What the hell?" Kurama said, more confused than he had ever been in the last hundred years.

"It's a birthday party." Naruto answered, grinning madly.

"For who?"

"You! Ya' stupid fox. It's a birthday party of you. I figured since you didn't know when you were born and didn't really have anybody to celebrate with before, that you should have one now."

"So you organized this?"

"Yep. I know how it feels to have everybody not want to celebrate your special day. So from now on today is your birthday!"

Kurama was shocked. Even after all he'd done to the kid, all the villagers had done to him, after everything that had ever happened to him, he still thought of others. This kid really was something.

"Thank you Naruto." Kurama said, smiling as he put a hand on his shoulder. "Thank you."

"Naruto-kun." Sakura said as she approached the two boys.

"Sakura-chan, I want you to meet Kurama." Naruto said, introducing the two.

"It's nice to meet you Kurama-san."

"Nice to meet you too Sakura-san." Kurama replied.

Kurama looked around the room. It seemed like Naruto had talked all of the Rookie 9 and Team Gai to attend as well as all the senseis. After his arrival everyone apparently formed their own little groups and started chatting. From the crowd Kurama sensed a familiar presence.

"Hey, Runt, is…"

"Naruto." Kurama was interrupted as the Kazekage emerged from the crowd.

"Gaara! Glad you could make it." Naruto said, happily hitting Gaara on the back.

"You invited Gaara?" Kurama asked.

"Yeah. I figured you should spend your first birthday with family, but Gaara was the only jinchuriki able to get here in time."

"Hello there, Kurama." Shukaku said from his place in Gaara's mind. He sounded happy. Giddy almost.

"What are you up too Shukaku?" Kurama asked suspiciously.

"Oh, nothing. So how are you doing, Fuzzbutt?" Shukaku asked, a smirk evident in his voice.

Kurama growled. "What was that?"

"Why so angry Fuzzbutt?"

Kurama didn't have time to answer before Naruto butted in. "But next week everyone is going to Suna for Shukaku's birthday. We didn't want to put them all on the same day, so we spread them out over a few monthes."

Kurama twitched.

Shukaku giggled with mad glee.

"I'm sure the others will love to hear about your new name, Fuzzbutt."  Shukaku laughed.

_"Why me?"_

* * *

**So what'd ya think? Please leave a review, even if you didn't like it.**


End file.
